DUSHANBE, April 1, 2014, Asia-Plus – A court in Dushanbe’s Sino district is considering the case pitting relatives of prison inmate Mahmadrahim Saidov against the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov

Mahmadrahim Saidov’s relatives  filed a lawsuit in the Sino district court on February 27 seeking 10,000 somoni and 1,500 somoni in moral and material damages respectively from SDP leader for spread of false information about the death of Mahmadrahim Saidov in prison.

“I familiarized myself with the lawsuit on March 31.  It was filed by Mahmadrahim Saidov’s mother and hearing over the lawsuit will start on April 7,” Rahmatillo Zoyirov told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to him, he is going to file a counter-claim.

We will recall that SDP leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov told Asia-Plus on February 6 that an inmate of Dushanbe prison has died of exposure to cold while in disciplinary cell.  “Mahmadrahim Saidov from Khatlon’s Hamadoni district was a 46-year-old inmate who died of exposure to cold,” Rahmatillo Zoyirov said, noting that he received that information from a reliable source.

Representative of Tajik Ombudsman’s Office, Husniddin Nidoyev, visited pretrial detention facility # 9/1 and penal colony # 3/1 in Dushanbe on the same day and said that no one prison inmate died of exposure to cold.

“I also talked to Mahmadrahim Saidov, who allegedly died of exposure to cold while in disciplinary cell.  I did not tell him that we have received information about his death to be honest.  I just said that I came as representative of the Ombudsman’s Office to study prison conditions in connection with cold weather that has hit the country in recent days,” said Nidoyev.  “According to him, the prison conditions are not so bad.  Therefore, information that prison inmate died after exposure to cold does not correspond to the facts.”

Saidov’s brother Safarali Saidov said on February 14 that they were deeply shocked to hear of the death of Mahmadrahim.  “We heard that news from media and went from Hamadoni to Dushanbe on the same day despite the cold weather,” Safarali said, noting that Mahmadrahim Saidov is alive and well and there are no traces of torture on him.